Electric

Tesla's Model 3 Loses Its Luster

October 3, 2017
• by Staff

Chart courtesy of KBB.com.

Tesla produced less than one-fifth of the Model 3 sedans in the initial quarter of production of the vehicle than it promised, and an independent survey shows potential customers losing interest in the vehicle.

For the quarter that ended with September, Tesla produced 260 Model 3 sedans out of the 1,600 Elon Musk mentioned on Twitter in July. The company delivered 220 cars due to "production bottlenecks," according to Tesla.

The company has seen delays at its California assembly plant in Fremont and the Gigafactory in Nevada.

About 500,000 people have submitted their names and $1,000 refundable deposits for a Model 3 to be added to a waiting list, which may be causing cooling interest in the vehicle, according to a new survey from KBB.com. The survey was done from Sept. 18 to 27.

The majority of the 1,181 respondents (52%) said they are "not interested in the Model 3." For those who are interested, the Model 3 is highly desirable with 35% saying they would wait for up to a month. Only 8% said they would wait three months and 7% said they would wait one year.

Musk has said he hopes to produce 10,000 Model 3 cars per week by the end of 2018.